


The Sight of You

by multifandomcircusfreak



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 06:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6645268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multifandomcircusfreak/pseuds/multifandomcircusfreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baz knew he didn’t have any right to do this, to check up on Simon. He had been the one to leave without saying goodbye. He had been the one to throw away everything they had together, and cut himself out of their life. He had been the one who had made the decision that Simon would be happier without him. </p><p>And here he was now, snooping in the window of their old flat.</p><p>(AU where Baz doesn't age)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sight of You

Baz shouldn’t be there. He knew that. He probably shouldn’t have been there any of the times he had been there, but he _especially_ shouldn’t be there now, because he had said last time that he would stop.

He didn’t have any right to do this, to check up on Simon. He had been the one to leave without saying goodbye. He had been the one to throw away everything they had together, and cut himself out of their life. He had been the one who had made the decision that Simon would be happier without him.

And here he was now, snooping in the window of their old flat.

 _Baz, you bloody creep_ , he told himself.

He knew Simon couldn’t see him. It was the evening, and Baz had cast a **Don’t Look At Me!** on himself, even wearing dark clothes just in case Simon saw through his magic. But the fact that he was all but staring through a one way mirror at the love of his life made him feel like a stalker. He probably _was_ being a stalker, if he was being honest. Simon’s life was none of his business now, he had made sure of that.

But was this so different from the way he had used to watch Simon sleep when they were younger? Allowing himself that little moment of self-pity? Giving himself that taste of what he couldn’t have?

 _Yes_ , he reminded himself. It _was_ different. Because he wasn’t pretending he had something he would never have. He was reminiscing over something he did have, once. Something he had tossed aside. Something he no longer deserved.

Baz made up his mind that he would stop this. He meant it this time. He may not be able to stop right away, but he would lessen his visits. He had done that before. He had gone from once every day, to once every week, to once every few months. He would do it again. He would visit Simon once every few years at most, up until…

His thoughts were jarred by the sound of a loud bang. Well, it was probably only loud to him, what with this heightened senses and all, but it still made him jump. It was the sound of the door. Simon was home.

The way their flat was set up, from the window Baz was peering through, he could only really see the living room. The kitchen was a little too far to the left, the bedroom was hidden behind a wall, and the front hallway was only visible at the very end.

Baz sucked in a breath, preparing himself for when Simon emerged into his sight.

It didn’t do him any good. The moment Simon stepped out of the hallway and into the living room, every nerve in Baz’s body ached. Simon wasn’t even entirely visible. He stood in front of a lamp, so he was backlit, and he wasn’t facing Baz at all. But Baz’s heart still squeezed.

A memory of another time Simon had looked similar to this popped into his head without permission.

_“Why are all the lights off?” Simon asked him, ever the sceptic._

_“Energy conservation,” Baz replied. It was partly true. Baz didn’t need much light to see, and he_ was _trying not to be wasteful about having all the lights on when they didn’t need to be. He just hadn’t stopped reading his book when the sun went down and left them in darkness._

_“Yeah, well, thanks to your energy conservation I can’t see where I’m going.”_

_“I could light some candles,” Baz teased, voice overly smooth and dripping with seduction._

_Simon snorted, but Baz knew he’d had some sort of effect on him. That made him smirk. “No, I think I found a lamp. We’re good.”_

_Simon turned the lamp on, and then he was shrouded in a dim yellowy light. It brushed over his hair, making it seem all the more bronze. It highlighted his shoulders, and traced the outline of his body, making him seem like a silhouette, an angel, a dream. Baz couldn’t help himself, he walked forward, longing to touch and know that he was real, and not just Baz’s imagination. That he wouldn’t wake up eighteen and despised. His hands wrapped around Simon’s torso, and he fit his face between Simon’s shoulder and jaw, nuzzling his pulse point with his nose._

_“Hey,” he mumbled._

_“Hey,” Simon said back._

The stark difference between the beauty of that memory and his life now made Baz wonder about reality. Was that a hazy dream and this was real? Or was that his life, and he was having a nightmare, about to wake up in Simon’s arms?

He knew the answer was neither.

Simon turned on the overhead light now, and Baz took in everything he could see. Simon was on his phone, and he was smiling.

 _That’s good_ , a part of Baz said. _He deserves to smile._

 _See?_ another part of him said. _He doesn’t need you. It’s been seven years since you left and he’s doing just fine. He’s moved on._

They were both good things, probably, but one of them still made his chest hurt.

Baz wondered what was on his phone that was making him grin so much. Maybe it was those stupid videos of animals doing abnormal things that he used to watch. Maybe it was Penny. She could make him grin like that. But no, Baz knew his Penny smile, and that wasn’t it.

_Maybe he’s seeing someone._

Once again, it was something that was good for Simon, which should make Baz happy, but he just felt like he was going to have to empty the contents of his stomach.

_At least he’s happy._

Baz watched as Simon paraded around the living room, smiling and sending a series of texts. Baz’s suspicions that he was texting a… lover had yet to be disproved. He heard the phone ring, and he saw Simon pick it up and hold it to his ear.

“Yeah, I saw them,” he was saying. Baz strained his ears to hear the other voice, even from this distance and through a pane of glass. He could cast a spell. No. Simon could hear him. And Baz wasn’t going to eavesdrop any more than he already was.

“I’m telling you, it looks fine! What? I’ll have you know that I can clean up quite well.” Baz agreed with that. He could hear the faint hum of a male voice coming from the phone. “I’ll drop by tomorrow…. No. No photos you send me are going to convince me to come earlier. I have an iron will…” Simon laughed. Baz missed that sound. “That doesn’t mean you have to _stop_ sending them.... Alright. Bye.”

He tucked his phone into his back pocket, still smiling.

Baz had the masochistic wish that Simon would notice him.

But of course he didn’t, he just moved on into the kitchen, out of Baz’s sight. He contemplated moving around the side of the building so that he could keep watching. He denied himself that. In fact, he should probably just go.

He didn’t. He kept listening.

Baz couldn’t see what was happening, but he recognized the sounds he had heard every day for years of his life (afterlife?). Simon was puttering around the kitchen, he knew - probably trying to find something to eat. Baz doubted he was even hungry. After all, with his magic gone he didn’t need to consume ungodly amounts of food to keep his energy up. But then again, he still had that bottomless pit of a stomach. It didn’t matter if he was hungry.

Then, Baz heard the familiar sound of him trying to reach something from the highest shelf. He was an inch too short to get at it, and Baz remembered all of the times he’d swooped in and ‘saved the day’. Simon had hated that, hated his cocky smirk and the fact he could just reach up and grab the honey. Simon had also loved it, the way Baz would press a kiss to his forehead before handing him whatever it was he’d wanted.

Baz himself had loved to be of use… and he had also loved tormenting Simon about his marginal height insufficiency… and the way Simon tried to deal with it.

_“No, you idiot! Don’t try to fly in here! You’ll break our kitchen!”_

_“Then why don’t you stop being such a bloody git and_ help me!”

The kitchen fell silent.

Curious, Baz tried to look through the window at different angles, even though he already knew he still wouldn’t be able to see what was happening. The absence of sound didn’t stop. There was no opening of more cupboards or closing of the fridge. For what seemed like ages, Baz heard nothing and saw nothing. He itched to know what was going on.

Just when he thought his head might explode, Simon walked out of the kitchen, back into the living room where Baz could see him. He was holding something. Baz tried to see around his fingers to know what it was, intrigued by the enraptured way Simon stared at it.

Finally, he was able to make it out.

It was a mug.

Baz’s mug.

Baz knew that he’d left some stuff behind. He’d taken his clothes, some money, his violin, but the entire process had been a rushed, cowardly attempt at leaving before he had to explain it to Simon. They would fight, and he would leave on a bad note. Or worse, they would remind each other that they were in love, and Baz would lose his nerve. So, he’d taken everything big, and had left Simon to deal with the multiple little knick knacks and memories he left lying around the flat.

Including that mug, which Baz figured must have been left on the top shelf.

Had Simon been looking for something else and found it by accident? Why hadn’t he discovered it before if he stored things up there? _Had_ he found it before, and was keeping it there, despite everything?

The air was stolen straight from Baz’s lungs. He didn’t breathe, he didn’t move, he didn’t think. All he could do was watch in stunned silence as Simon sat on the couch, right where Baz could see him. He clutched the mug against his chest and cried, his shoulders moving up and down as sobs racked his body.

Simon was crying… over _him_.

But why… Baz had left seven years ago. He’d never let Simon see him when he visited, he’d made sure they never saw their friends at the same time, he’d assured himself that he was making this as easy as it could be - a clean break. So why would someone as beautiful and lovable as Simon Snow _ever_ miss someone like Baz? He wasn’t even alive.

And Simon had seemed like he had moved on. He had seemed so... happy. Was _this_ what he was holding inside of himself now? Tears over a chipped mug?

He wanted to hold him. He wanted to take him back to those days when they were both young and wild and wrinkle-free, before Baz had ever become obsessed with their aging. He wanted to gather Simon into his arms and watch The Fox and the Hound for the millionth time, and wipe away his tears at the sad parts, because it ‘it’s okay. It’s always going to be okay’.

Baz acted on instinct, ignoring the raging thoughts inside his head that were telling him to just _leave_. Quietly, he opened the window and climbed inside. Simon didn’t hear him. Or maybe he was just too caught up in his own emotion to really process any unusual sounds. Baz was already a few feet away from him and Simon still wasn’t paying any attention to him.

_This is your chance to leave. You can go and never come back. You can pretend this never happened._

He pushed those thoughts aside.

Taking a deep breath to quell his nerves, Baz said, “Hello, Simon.”

Simon slowly raised his head, and looked at him. Baz was taken aback by the sight of him. He’d almost forgotten how blue his eyes were, and the texture of his hair. He looked different from when Baz had left, more gray hairs peppering the bronze around his ears, a few lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, a hairline a bit higher.

“Baz?” he asked weakly, his face streaked with tears.

“I’m here,” Baz replied, trying his best not to fidget. And also not to throw himself at Simon. That would be bad.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m, er, just checking in… This was a mistake. I should just go-”

“No!” Simon cried, dropping the mug onto the couch cushion. “Don’t go! Just… just pretend you want to stay until I get this to work.”

He stuck out his arm and pinched it, hard.

“Snow, what the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m waking up. My therapist says that I have to be in control of my dreams, not you. It hurts more when I wake up if I pretend it’s real.”

“Simon, this is real. I’m real.”

Simon laughed. It was a strange laugh. Not his real one. This one was… not bitter, but close to it. It was dismissive. Baz didn’t like it. “Of course you aren’t. You’re a… creation of my subconscious. I was missing you, so now you’re here.”

“No-”

“I’ll wake up in a second.”

“Simon, you are _not_ asleep,” Baz said urgently. He reached out and grabbed Simon’s arm, hard enough for it to cause some pain. Just enough for him to know that this wasn’t a dream.

It worked, apparently, because Simon sucked in a shocked breath. He stared down at Baz’s hand on his arm like it had just appeared out of thin air. Slowly, his eyes raked up Baz’s body until they were looking into his own, wide blue eyes gazing into insistent grey ones.

“ _Baz?”_ he breathed. “Is that… Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t changed at all.”

“I’m aware. We both know that’s why I…” he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Simon wrenched his arm away and took a few steps back. He turned around so that Baz couldn’t see his expression, and brought his hands up to cover his face.

“Why you left,” he finished in a wrecked voice.

“I’m not going to apologize,” Baz told him. It was true. There was no point in apologizing. What happened happened, and while he shouldn’t be here now, he shouldn’t have stayed either. He did the right thing. He hoped.

“Good,” Simon replied. “I’d punch you if you did.”

“Would you really?”

“I… I’m not sure. I should.”

The room was silent for a few moments.

“I think I did the right thing,” Baz told the back of his head quietly. “It wouldn’t have worked. We wouldn’t have been able to be public about anything, and here… here, all I was able to think about was how I wasn’t right for you anymore. You keep living, and I’m… stuck like this.”

“Did you think I wasn’t insecure about it?” Simon spun around abruptly, giving Baz no escape from his angry gaze. “I was the one getting all mushy-faced and grey while you stayed… you. Of course I was insecure! I looked in the mirror all the time to see if I looked too old! But at the end of the day, I didn’t care. Because I never thought you’d think I was too unattractive for you. Or too old. I never thought you’d pick looks over what we had. And, I… I never, _ever_ thought you would leave.”

“Please, don’t-” Simon’s voice was shaky, either from anger or sadness or _whatever_ it was he was feeling. Baz hoped he didn’t start crying. If Snow started crying, he would start crying, and then this whole thing would be a blubbery mess of emotions with no end.

“I have a _tail_ , Baz! A tail and _wings!_ Do you honestly think that appearances are what matter to me? And it’s not like you’re that creepy vampire from the novels who’s a hundred years old and goes lusting after teenagers! We are the same age! Just as much as we were the same age when we were eleven!”

“It’s not that-”

“And I just don’t get it! Because it wasn’t like we were ever going to be normal! So, it’s not like it would have been that much of a problem! Who _cares_ if we would have had to use magic to kiss in public? I’m sure you could have made yourself look older, or me younger!”

“It wouldn’t have been real, Simon!” Baz yelled. “It would have only been magic!”

“Of course it would have been real!” Simon screamed back. Damn him and his awful, beautiful stubbornness. “It would have been completely real because _we are the same age!_ It wouldn’t have been a lie, it just would have shown what you would look like naturally if you were able to age!”

“You mean, ‘if I wasn’t a vampire’,” he paraphrased bitterly. “Because guess what, Simon? That’s exactly what I am and no magic is going to change that.”

“I got used to the vampire thing years ago.”

“Get used to it all you want, love, it’s not going to change the fact that you’re going to keep moving forward with your life, and I’m always going to look like I’m in my twenties. That should definitely bother you.”

“Well, it doesn’t, because I _never_ cared about looks. I cared about what was in _here_.” Simon tapped Baz’s chest, right over his heart. His voice was louder now, and full of the emotion that Baz was trying - and failing - to keep under control. “Because it was what’s in here that I spent so long trying to figure out. It was what’s in there that made me realize neither of us are monsters. So, if you think that I would ever have changed my mind because of how old you look, then you, Basilton Grimm-Pitch, are an absolute idiot, because I loved you! You were everything I had, and everything I ever wanted! I was in complete and utter love with you! And I still am! I… I still am.”

Simon took a shaky breath and stepped backwards. Baz could hear his heartbeat pick up. The air between them was full of enough emotion for it to take seven proverbial knives to cut through it. Inside of him, his mind battled his heart over warring instincts. Leave. Apologize. Travel through time. Snog the hell out of Simon. His breathing was shallow. Simon was practically panting.

“Kiss me,” Simon told him, voice steady.

 _“What?”_ It was Baz’s turn to step back now.

Simon stepped after him, forcing eye contact. “Kiss me.”

“No!”Baz cried. “This isn’t going to fix anything. Nothing’s going to change. You age. I don’t. This isn’t some novella where everything is resolved with a conversation.”

If he kissed Simon, then the heartache both of them had gone through before and after Baz had left was meaningless. If he kissed Simon, seven years of their lives had been wasted. If he kissed Simon, Baz knew he would never be able to stop.

“Fine,” Simon said. For a minute, Baz stupidly thought the argument was over. But this was Simon Snow, and he was stubborn as a mule. “Then tell me you don’t love me.”

“What?”

“Tell me you don’t love me. Because you either left because of that, or because you loved me too much. And you’re here now, so…”

Baz was silent.

“You can’t, can you?” Simon continued, taking another step forward. “I _know_ you, Baz. And I know that your reaction to pretty much every emotion is to shove it aside. I spent so long trying to figure out why you… left, after everything it took us to open up to each other. And maybe there was a time where I wondered if you stopped loving me.”

Baz ran his fingers through his hair. This was too much for him.

“But you’re here now. And that has _got_ to mean something. But… if you don’t love me, you can tell me that, and I’ll… I’ll let you go.”

He stared at Baz in that infuriatingly intense way of his, pushing a response out of him. “Fine!” he exclaimed. “Bloody hell, Simon. I loved you then and I never stopped. I still love you, alright? I admit it. But it _doesn’t change anything_. Everything I said before is true.”

Simon grabbed his shoulders. “It means everything! Because we can fix this!”

“We can’t fix it! This whole problem is based on something that isn’t going to just go away! It kills me, to look in the mirror and see the same face every day, while you change. Yes, we’re the same age, but that doesn’t change the fact that physically, I’m frozen. So, it’s going to destroy me when you’re seventy years old and I’m still looking like this. I feel like I’m taking advantage of you!”

“Well, I only have so much time in this world, and I want to spend it with you!” Simon took a breath. “When you left… I was so confused. I thought you were off somewhere sulking, waiting to have a conversation that would make it better. But you were gone. And I… I thought the world was over.”

“I’m so sorry, Simon,” Baz said in a way that was far too close to a sob for comfort.

Simon gazed at him with intent. “It’s not going to go away. But we lost seven years already. I don’t want to lose another minute that I could be spending with you.”

They stared at each other for what seemed like hours. The foot of space between them was charged, full of an indistinguishable energy. With every second that passed, it was like a rubber band, pulling, and pulling, and pulling, until it snapped.

“Kiss me,” Simon said again.

Baz did as he was told.

In the split second before their lips connected, Baz feared that it was going to be awkward. They had been apart for seven years. Surely that had to have some kind of impact on the physicality of their relationship. It didn’t.

Baz grabbed Simon’s cheeks and pulled him in for the kiss. It was like coming home. He could tell that they were both trying to pour every single emotion they had felt over the past seven years into the one action, and it felt so good. If kissing required muscle memory, then they had memorized each other inside and out. Simon nudged his nose against Baz’s, they way he knew that he liked. Baz slid his teeth over Simon’s lower lip, the way that he knew _he_ liked. The used all of their old tricks, and combined them with the desperation they were currently feeling.

Simon was a river, and Baz wanted to drown.

Baz tried to pull away for air. Simon allowed this for enough time to take a quick breath, and then he was tugging on Baz’s collar, pulling him back into another kiss. He kissed him. And he kissed him. And he kissed him. And he kissed him.

“Fuck, I missed you,” Simon gasped against his lips.

“I missed you too,” Baz replied, closing in on the mole on his neck.

Baz mouthed the spot for a while before Simon found the air to tell him “I don’t care if I’m seventy and you look like you’re twenty. I’d totally snog you as an old man. You’re always hot.”

Baz laughed against his neck. “Only you, Simon.”

“And you know, we’re only thirty nine years old. I’m still attractive, right?”

Baz slid a hand around his waist. “Always. You’re destined to be the hottest seventy year old man there ever was.”

“Damn right I am,” Simon said in a huff. Then he pulled Baz’s face back up to his own, kissing him again.

Baz could see where this was going. Simon was definitely intent on making up for lost time.

A thought popped into his head.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he informed Simon’s lips,” if you have a date tomorrow.”

Simon pulled back. “What?”

“Your phone call earlier. I heard it. I mean, you know I know you can clean up, but if you’re planning on proving that to someone else, then-”

Simon started laughing. Not a small laugh, either. It was the kind of laugh that came from deep down in your stomach, and involved a lot of leaning back and doubling over.

“That was Micah!” he cried gleefully.

“Who?”

“Penny’s husband! The American one! He’s been trying to convince me to get a puppy recently. Keeps on texting me cute pictures of them and calling me to tell me to go to the pet store. I told him I’d drop by there tomorrow.”

Baz’s heart fluttered. “It wasn’t a date?”

“No!’

“So… would you mind if _I_ asked you out on a date tonight?”

Simon looked up at him softly, a small smile growing on his lips. He slid his hands around Baz’s neck, rubbing up and down on his shoulders, and his smile became a smirk.

“Actually…” he said mischievously. “I was kind of hoping we could stay in?”

Baz took a breath. “That sounds good. Very good, actually. I… I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Simon told him earnestly. He rested his head in the crook of Baz’s neck, inhaling a few breaths against the pale skin there. “Baz?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Stay this time, please. I couldn’t bear it if this didn’t last.”

“I promise, Simon, I’m not going to leave.”

“Good,” Simon concluded. Then he leaned in for another kiss.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> come check me out on tumblr! I'm thelynchbros over there!


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